Beattie still leads the way after Irish Open

Although the big Foyle man maintained his impressive record of reaching the knockout stage of every SMPT event he has entered, he was ushered through the exit door by the Isle of Man's Stephen Gale, when the last 64 players went into action in the main event.

Beattie remains in the number one spot, but his lead over Dimitri Payne is now cut to 56 points.

Although Pauline Beattie defeated Aidan Corrigan to take the bronze medal, she disappointingly lost two places in the table, dropping from six the eight.

Pauline's husband Joe managed to finish in only third place in his group, behind Mark Leckey and Robert Kidd, which meant he failed to squeeze into the main event and had to settle for a place in the Shield.

He negotiated his opening match against Trevor Wallace, but was beaten in the last 32 by Jackie Erskine, who went on to win the competition.

Joe Beattie, however retained his 12 position in the world rankings, with Tony Bell and Cecil Dillon nudging into the 15th and 16th places.

Results: Shield last 16: D Winmill 8 W Esler 5; R Bell 10 A Cockcroft 7; C Green 8 G Moen 10; G Kearney 2 J Lax 11; S O’Neill 10 A Tanner 7; K Tinney 13 I Nelson 3; J Rankin 13 A Morrision 3; D Ryste 5 A Thompson 9

Quarter finals: D Winmill 14 R Bell 7; G Moen 11 J Lax 2; S O’Neill 12 K Tinney 4; J Rankin 10 A Thompson 9. Semi finals: Winmill 8 Moen 7; O’Neill 5 Ranking 9. Final: Winmill 12 Ranking 8.

Plate last 16: J Cushnahan 6 K McDermott 9; N Haire 6 S Finlay 5; A Mahaffy 6 R Mackin 7; T Bell 10 J Barnes 8; T Brady 5 McDermott 9; R Smyth 10 T Boyd 6; J Devine 7 D McCann 10; J Erskine 8 D McAllister 7.

Quarter finals: K McDermott 3 N Haire 11; R Macken 4 T Bell 12; F McDermott 4 R Smyth 10; D McCann 3 J Erskine 8. Semi finals: Haire 11 Bell 3; Smyth 2 Erskine 11. Final: Erskine 8 Haire 6.

World rankings: 1 M Beattie, 2 D Payne, 3 J Hager, 4 D Almen, 5 J Payne, 6 D Reed, 7 J Pye, 8 P Beattie, 9 S Gale, 10 L Toleman, 11 B Toleman, 12 J Beattie, 13 N Reed, 14 P Pomeroy, 15 T Bell, 16 C Dillon.